67 times Nikola kept them to himself One time, he didn't
by Crazy-McWritesalot
Summary: "Those gifts are ever more precious that their giver has made them precious"- Ovid. Can you guess what's in the next box? Do you want to choose what's in the next box? I have no idea where this story is going, but I can assure you it's going to be a funny writer/readers adventure, full of Teslen...
1. Chapter 1

**Hi everyone! So... I'm finally listening to my muse who's been shouting in my head for weeks now... This story will be a collection of drabbles, 67 of them plus introduction and conclusion. For once, I let you decide what happens in the next chapter... Read this first chapter, I'll explain afterwards :).  
Enjooooy the fluffiness..**

July, 20th, 2011

"You need to rest, Magnus. Whether you stay here or go to your bedroom, that's not important, but if anyone sees you even near your office, I'll personally shoot you in the other leg."  
From her infirmary bed, Helen glared at Will who blushed as his own daring outburst.  
"Okay. Not personally. I'll get Tesla to do it, as a payback." He said, shrugging. "Believe me, replacing you for a few days more is not my idea of fun, but we came very close to losing you. You have to rest."  
Helen knew her protégé was right. Every breath she took was painful, and she winced each time she stirred. She had been isolated from the team while chasing an abnormal, abnormal which had cornered her on a rooftop, bit into her leg, and thrown her over the top, down in the street. Her fall had been stopped by a fence, on which she had impaled herself, a spike plunging into the soft skin of her belly causing sufficient internal damage to kill her. Will and Henry had brought her back early enough to enable Biggie to save her. She had gone through surgery, and after two weeks under sedatives, she was doing okay. But she had to face it: she would have to take it slow for a few more weeks. She closed her eyes and sighed.  
"Fine..."  
"You're damn lucky to be alive..."

She nodded. She had been silly enough to run after that giant Cerberus dog alone, a mistake that could have got her killed hadn't it been for her team's professionalism.  
"Could you get me the crutches? I'll go to my room."  
Will got the crutches and handed them to Magnus. He was surprised to see her comply without arguing further. He smiled. It was either a side-effect of morphine or she was conscious of how close she had been to leaving this world behind.  
When he saw her wince as she was sitting up on the side of the bed, he flew to her rescue, helping her up, an arm around her lean waist, hers around his shoulders. Helen thanked him silently. She had not imagined it would be so hard to stay upright. She drew in a sharp breath and took the clutches from Will. By the time she had found her balance on her left leg, she was already sweaty and panting for air.

The young man observed her as she was trying to walk to the door, each step more confident and stable than the last one. He doubted it was wise to let her walk to her room.  
"Magnus... Let me walk you."  
She stopped with her back to him.  
"I'll be fine Will."  
She could already feel a wave of nausea rise up in her stomach, and exhaustion crawling on her, and she knew she would be really sore in the morning, but she would not let anyone see that. She had spent two weeks in that infirmary bed, dozing and having to stand being unable to do anything. Now, she was decided to show the boss was back. Alive and well.  
Will hesitated. Someone normal would never reach the room... But then again, Dr. Magnus was not 'normal'. Still, her determination alone would not be enough to get her safely to her own welcoming bed. He decided the best course of action would be to let her think she could do it without any help, and follow her from a distance, just in case.  
"If you say so..." He said, not convinced.  
She limped to the door of the infirmary and tried to open the door. Unfortunately, she had to pull it towards her, which was a lot more difficult than pushing it. Will ran to help her.  
"Thank you."  
She hopped to the elevator, and before the doors could close, she suddenly looked at Will.

"Oh, and please send the last reports my way. I need to be filled in on what happened around here those last two weeks." She said, trying to conceal a wince as the pain around the scar on her abdomen was suddenly waking up.  
The doors of the elevator closed on her before the psychologist could answer. He snorted, smiling,and shook his head.  
"Yeah, never gonna happen." He whispered to himself.

҉

It took her about fifteen minutes to reach her door, stopping whenever the pain was excruciating, bringing tears to her eyes and effectively preventing her from seeing clearly where she was headed, or when she needed to breath, leaning against a wall.

When she did reach the door to her room, she was glad she was only wearing a short and a tank top, as the effort had left her covered with a thin layer of sweat, and she could hear her heartbeat buzzing in her ears and feel her blood running wildly in her veins. She was hot, and it had nothing to do with it being summer.

She pushed the door open, and immediately noticed that something wasn't right. First, her oil lamp was on on her nightstand, the flame flickering with the breeze coming through the open window... She froze. Someone was there. She thought for a second that maybe Will had asked Biggie to prepare her room... But she registered the faint smell of aftershave that was typically Nikola, and she kicked the door to open it wider, letting out a groan when she leaned on the wrong leg, sending a sparkle of electricity running through her nerves, and clouding her vision with colorful spots.  
Before she knew what was happening, Nikola's arm was around her, helping her on the bed.  
"Helen... Your stubbornness might be arousing, but it will only get you killed." He said, his tone filled with concern, chastising her for being so proud.  
His friend ignored his comment and adjusted her position on the bed, laying down, her vision coming back gradually.  
"What are you doing in my room?" She asked, when she saw him clearly.  
He sat down next to her, careful not to hurt her through the vibrations he sent to the mattress.

"I thought you might need some company... To help you change, bathe, eat..." He ogled her quite openly, taking in the sight of her naked legs, and she wished she had enough strength to make him regret that.  
"And I never had the occasion to give you all that." He finished, gesturing to the monstrous pile of wrapped gifts on the table. "You know, you never really have time, running around barking orders. So I figured it was the ideal occasion." He said casually.

Helen frowned, looking to the huge mess on her table, then back at Nikola. What was all that about? The occasion for what?  
"Nikola... What on Earth is that all about?" She asked, tired. She wasn't in the mood for one of his games.

She was expecting him to come up with a sneaky comment and a smirk, she even expected him to pat her legs, taking advantage of the fact that she could not jump to wring his delicate neck... Everything really, but what he did? It left her speechless. He stared at his hands nestled next to hers on the mattress, and smiled fondly. And was that...A slight blush? She raised an eyebrow.

"You remember how we used to always try and get together every year around Christmas? How important it was for you?" He asked, softly.  
She didn't answer, but she felt her insides flutter. Of course she remembered...  
"You would buy a new gown that you would only wear for the party, ask for a huge Christmas tree and insist on getting James, Nigel and I to decorate it with you. We would drink far too much wine, exchange kisses under the mistletoe and dance until exhaustion... And of course we would think a lot, share new ideas..."  
Helen surprised herself by thinking that he forgot to mention that he would always show them his new inventions and tricks... Which was probably the best part of their Christmas Eves back then.  
"And...We would exchange gifts." He ended, pinning her with his gray gaze.  
She felt the corners of her lips tilt upwards without her consent. He looked strangely nostalgic and emotional. It rang true, but it felt really odd. She hadn't seen him like that since even before the source blood... God, how close they had been back then... She sighed. Those were simple, happy times... They had been different.  
"I do remember. That was a lot of fun. What's the link? It's July..." She said with a side smile.  
When she saw the inner struggle his body-language was translating, she slowly brought her hand to cover his, and their gazes met. She tilted her head expectantly, and he sighed.  
"All those years in hiding, whenever I missed you, I would think of how happy you looked when the tree was decorated. How absolutely gorgeous you looked, staring at the star on top of it with your eyes sparkling. That alone made me happy." He might have realized he was being cheesy, for he added: "Of course there were also those kisses under the mistletoe, but I kept those for the lonely nights."  
Helen slapped his hands, but she couldn't help the chuckle that escaped from her, and she gasped for air when the pain reminded her that she was in bed for a good reason.  
Nikola winced at seeing her in such a state, but he went on, serious again.  
"I traveled a lot and saw things that only you could imagine, but wherever I went, whenever I would see something you'd like, I would take it, hoping to be able to put them under the tree when at last I'd see you again."

Helen was at a loss for words. Of course she had missed Nikola all those years, but she had never thought he would think of finding a gift each year...  
"That makes..." She began, thinking to herself.  
"67 of them, if you count the one I bought last year... I thought you'd invite me for Christmas. I was disappointed."  
She blushed slightly. She had never thought of him as the kind of man to take celebrations seriously. All those years ago, he had looked frankly annoyed at her insistence for him to join her for Christmas.

"Oh Nikola..." Her face lit up and a delighted smile appeared on her lips, leaving her friend happy that he could still make her smile so much. "Who would have known that you could still surprise me after more than a century?" She asked.  
"That's my personal pride." He answered, this time smirking playfully. And she rolled her eyes.  
"So you've had all those 67 gifts with you all that time?"  
He rose from the bed and went to the table, rummaging through the piles.  
"Well, I used to have less of those. Shall we begin? It might take you a while to open every one of them."

Helen bit her bottom lip. She didn't feel the pain anymore, too focused on the fact that her very own vampire, labeled as one of the most dangerous men on Earth several times in the last century by federal agencies and governments, looked like a child at Christmas. Over sixty years of memories were here on the table, and strangely, she couldn't wait to unravel them.  
"You could have written cards instead." She said, trying to stay humble whereas she felt like being treasured.  
Nikola gazed at her and smirked again, that special smirk he had when they were making a scientific breakthrough.  
"Sure. But this is so much more fun." He stated, his deep voice creating goosebumps on her skin. Or was it the breeze?

 **Hope you like the idea... I feel like we could have some fun going through the gifts together... And for that, I will leave you the opportunity to choose what's in the boxes. Just send me a Private Message with your ideas, and I'll pick one for each chapter, and work around the idea :). There will be some of my ideas as well (hell, that's still my story ;)).**

 **I hope you're as excited as I am by this idea... LET THE FUN BEGIIIIIN.**


	2. A dodo (or is it?)

**Hi Y'all... Sorry for the delay... I moved back to France, so I'm currently reconnecting with my family, and dealing with lots of things (baby-goddaughter included). I hope this first chapter meets your expectations...  
Idea sent by Sam and Estelle. Thank you girls ;D. **

_Antananarivo, Madagascar, March 29th, 1947,_

" _Nicolas!"  
Nikola turned to the door that a young woman had flung open. Eva, a sweet red-head girl in her twenties, was dressed in her nightgown, her hair disheveled, looking as if she had just woken up. The genius checked the old clock on the wall. Two... He had been so fascinated by his current study that he had not seen the sun set.  
"What is it Eva? Another nightmare?" Nikola asked in the best French he could utter.  
Pretending he was a French citizen was fine when he spent his days locked up in Eva's father's lab, assisting him in his research on the fauna and flora of Madagascar. Indeed, Mr. Clark was an Englishman who didn't speak a word of French despite having been married to a French woman for thirty years. So Nikola would take on a French accent whenever he spoke to him and hope it would be enough. He avoided Mrs. Clarke as much as possible, as he was sure she would end up blowing his cover. Eva... Well, she was fascinated by her father's work and so she would always drop by unannounced at all time of the day... And night. She might never have been to France, but she still spoke her mother-tongue. Nikola had grown to like her for her curiosity. She was far from stupid, and they had had countless conversations in the year and a half Nikola had lived in the Clarks' basement.  
"Nicolas, you must go. The insurrection has begun. Moramanga's police station was attacked earlier..."  
He couldn't say he was shocked. There had been rumors, and the family had some well-placed relations who usually shared information.  
However, they had never talked about fleeing when the rebellion against colonialism happened...  
"I am not going anywhere Eva. Not if you and your family stay behind... The rebels are not that numerous, and we both know their secrets are not so secret either. The French authorities will crush the rebellion." He said, barely registering the lights of a car parking in front of the house. _

_Eva took his hands precipitately.  
"Yes, and It's going to be really nasty. Nicolas, you have been here for only a little above a year. You have no idea how bad the tensions are getting here."  
He saw she was afraid, but he really had no wish to go... He had nowhere to go anyway.  
"Don't worry, I don't think the government would let a French citizen unprotected." He tried. Eva shook her head.  
"Nicolas, I'm not stupid. I know you are not French. Your French is astounding, but still. I'm not even sure your first name is Nicolas... I don't care who you really are. I know enough about you to know that your only interest is knowledge. Whatever you're here for, I can tell you're not a spy." She said, her eyes reflecting the way her brain worked.  
He smiled. Of course she had noticed.  
"Let's say I'm on holidays. My name really is Nicolas... Give or take a few letters. Eva... I'm sorry I lied. You'd better not know who I really am. But you have to understand: I'm not leaving. I'm able to defend myself, and your family if I can."  
Eva shook her head again, with more energy this time, and pointed at the car now silently waiting in the path leading to the house.  
"I know you are. Listen. We don't have much time. You must go and take the dodo with you, and find the zoologist you told me about. Remember?" She asked, full of hope. _

_The dodo... Or whatever it was. The skeleton had everything of a dodo, except it was smaller, and it had fingers instead of the usual dodo wings. Dr. Clark had acquired the remains years before, but it was still a full enigma to decode. When Nikola had first seen it, he had thought of Helen with a smile. Had she been there, she would have furrowed her brows to take a closer look at the bones, and she would have examined the dodo while squinting, fascinated. To him, it was only bones. To her, it was a valuable specimen, a missing link between two species..._ 'Helen...You'd love this' _he had whispered when Eva and her father had shown the dodo to him.  
Take the dodo to Helen... He couldn't take the risk of getting in touch with the Sanctuary so soon after his 'death'. However, he could find the dodo a home for it to wait until he could see her again... He would, one day.  
And so in about ten minutes, his new life had ended in the passenger seat of a black Bristol 400, his small suitcase on his knees, and a box containing the skeleton at his feet. He looked back at the Clark house to see the whole family out on the porch. Even in the dark, he knew they were crying. He might never see them again.  
_

Helen scrutinizing the skeleton was exactly the way Nikola had imagined her all those years back. He had carefully pieced the bones back together and put them in a glass cage.

"So you went back to Madagascar after the end of the war..." She stated, looking intently at the fingers of the dodo, as if she expected them to tell her something.  
"I was quite satisfied with the food there." Nikola admitted, and Helen grimaced. She remembered seeing him drink blood from a lemur while they had been there for the Ironclad mission with the British troops.

"I'm sorry for your friends... I guess this abnormal wouldn't be there if they had made it through the insurrection." She said, patting his arm in a soothing manner.  
He shrugged. He had never heard of Eva or her family again, and their names had not been on the list of the 550 European victims of the insurrection. He doubted very much they'd be counted among the 89 000 casualties of the repression by the French authorities...

"What do you think of this dodo?" He asked, changing the subject, bringing his head closer to hers.  
She turned to him slightly, not failing to notice his lips, mere inches from hers, and she smiled, amused and touched by his attention.  
"I think it's not a dodo at all..." She said mysteriously.

"Oh?"  
"I'll have to study it closer... Thank you Nikola. You just found me something to do in the next two weeks."

"I aim to please..." He answered, his gaze a bit too intense for them both, and he rose from the bed to get a second gift.

Helen leaned back into her pillow, smiling and purring like the cat who got the milk, still studying the skeleton. It was truly amazing. Just the kind of gift her father would have got. This gift had a story, the kind of story she would have liked to share with Nikola.  
She stared at him while he was carefully selecting his next gift, and a smile crept up on her face.

"So, the lemurs... They made you move it, move it, in the end..." She said teasingly.  
Nikola froze, and it took him a few seconds to understand the reference. He rolled his eyes. Really?! Helen could be so... Young sometimes.

 **What is in the next box?**


	3. The first edition of

**Hi y'all :D. Thank you so much for your amazing and continuous support ! I must say I really love reading your ideas for the next chapters... I've got a list and all on my desk ;). I hope I won't disappoint with this chapter... A lot of you asked for a first edition of some book (I'm sorry I forgot who exactly asked for that... .). Anyway... Enjoy.**

 **OH, and... The Summer is OVER :(. It does mean I'll be studying hard again and I'll have less time to write... HOWEVER, I'm glad to say my work is related to Tesla, so it will probably give me loooots of ideas to write about ;). Keep in touch!**

2010

Working for the SCIU meant moving out of his apartment into a new one paid for by the government. He didn't have a lot of things to pack. He had never been materialistic, having moved a lot in his long life, but he had thought of Canada as a home for a few years, and he had thought he was finally settled for a few decades... And so he had piled up gadgets, notes, books and memories that he had to move to the United States.  
That's how he had ended up sipping wine and going through the books on his shelves. He threw an old collection of Whitman's poetry into the closest box, uncovering the cover of the next book of the pile. It was the first edition of _A Yankee from Connecticut in King Arthur's Court_ , by Mark Twain. Nikola took it and sat down on his bed. This book was worth an awful lot of money, but he couldn't sell it. The author had been his closest friend when he had arrived in New York, and he had spent years working with him. He rose his glass to the sky.  
"Cheers, Samuel. Wherever you are, I hope you're having more fun than I do."

 _1889, New York,_

" _That's it!"  
Nikola had been so engrossed in his study of a plan commissioned by the city council that he had failed to notice the old man entering his brand new lab. _

_He smiled when he saw his favorite American writer and best friend walk towards him, brandishing a green leathery book with large golden inscriptions on its cover, reading "A Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain."._

 _Nikola folded his blueprints and put them aside. He hadn't seen his friend in months, and he wasn't about to turn down an invitation to take a break coming from Samuel Clemens._

 _The two men shook hands and hugged.  
"Before we talk about my last book, may I express my utmost disappointment regarding your disinterest in your American friends, Nikola? You barely wrote, and only to my wife." The eminent author said with a smile, unable to hide his joy of seeing his friend after his tour in Europe. _

_Nikola shrugged._

" _I wrote to you both. Didn't she let you read?" Nikola said, smirking.  
Samuel shrugged.  
"Olivia and you share a love of poetry that I don't really feel I should share. Anyway. You didn't stay only in Paris, right?"  
Nikola shook his head. He had given a few lectures in Paris, attended the celebration around the Eiffel Tower -which he had found quite fascinating regarding radio transmissions-, but he had mainly gone to London to see Helen. Something was wrong, he had understood that while reading her last letter before he had set to Paris. At first, he had thought she was only nervous about the wedding. She was only a few months away from marrying John, and she was not the kind of woman the society wanted her to be, after all. But when he had seen her face to face... He had known something was terribly wrong. John was not acting decently, yet, Helen wouldn't admit it. She didn't have to. He knew her, and he knew something had been broken inside of her. Whatever, he had already planned to smash the wedding anyway. She had told him she would visit him in New York before the ceremony. He still had time to extract information from her.  
"That Eiffel Tower has given me new ideas for my current research. I'll tell you about it if you tell me what this book is about." He promised, pointing at the book Samuel had put on the desk.  
"This, my friend... Is a book I couldn't have written without you. That's your book. This is the first edition and I've thought I'd bring you one. Keep it for your next time you're in bed with a strange illness."  
Nikola smiled. He had discovered Mark Twain's first books while struggling against an unknown sickness that had almost killed him in Croatia, long before the Five and the source blood. His friend had saved him through his writing, and when he had told him that upon their first meeting, the author had shed a few tears. He took the book and opened it. Inside was Samuel's signature and a few words: _

" _For a genius who gave life to the future, and whom I'm honored to call my friend."_

 _Nikola smiled like the cat who got the milk.  
"My dear friend... If I invented the future of science, you sure invented the future of American literature." He said with a wink.  
_  
Present times,

Helen couldn't find words to express how touched she was to see Nikola's second gift. When she had met him for the first time in Oxford, he was sitting under a tree, reading some of Twain's early work, and they had spent long hours exchanging their thoughts about those books. Later, he had introduced her to Mr. Clemens, and she had been delighted by the man... And by his wife, Olivia, whom Nikola seemed to love fondly. She had been heartbroken when she had understood that Nikola was too loyal to his friend to take his wife away from him. But that was another story.  
She opened the book. Under Twain's message for Nikola was Nikola's message for her:

" _For Helen, Because the best of men couldn't give life to anything without a woman by his side."_

She looked at the date and frowned. He had signed it just before beginning to work for the SCIU... A subtle way to tell her he wouldn't oppose her. They were a team.

She smiled fondly and shook her head, closing the book and looking at Nikola.  
"Why then? You've had this book for over a century... Why this one?" She asked.  
He shrugged, still looking at her from the end of the bed, leaning on the canopy.  
"I was about to move to Nevada. I needed space." He said, avoiding her gaze.

She smiled, knowingly, and raised an eyebrow, her head tilted to the side, waiting for the rest of the story. He sighed.  
"Okay. I already kind of knew what the SCIU was doing to your little friends, I considered it possible they would keep me as a prisoner or try to kill me. I wanted you to remember me as I am. Not as the one who betrayed you or turned into I don't know what...". He admitted, looking at his feet.  
Helen closed her eyes and smiled. God how sweet he could be. She laughed softly and offered a hand to him, waiting for him to take it before she opened her eyes again.  
"Nikola..." She played with his fingers. "I've known you far too long to believe you could change overnight."

He smiled like a kid.

"I thought for a while you didn't love me anymore." He tried, kissing her fingers.  
She snorted and took her hand back.

"Now don't push your luck. You did betray me, Nikki...".  
At that, Nikola rolled his eyes and turned back to the rest of the gifts, wondering which one to open next.


End file.
